


As I Have Cherished You

by Nicnac



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Gen, God Ships Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Mom is here to support and validate all your life choices, Post-Canon, my God is a loving God, she's my emotional support deity, with a heavy comfort to hurt ratio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 13:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20706956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicnac/pseuds/Nicnac
Summary: God visits two of Her children





	As I Have Cherished You

Waves crashed against the shore, the unrelenting steady nature of the sound only enhancing the stillness of the evening. Further up the beach there was a cliff face, one barely tall enough to be deserving of the name, with a path running up it. Taking the path led to a garden, one lush and verdant and a little overgrown, but even that last had a sense of deliberateness and care to it. Through the garden was a cottage, the perfect size for a young couple or perhaps a very, very old one.

Aziraphale was in the cottage now, probably still reading the same book he’d been when Crowley had come out to the beach. His mug of cocoa would be half-drunk and still perfectly warm, but the latter only because Crowley had placed a miracle on it before he’d left. He would head back up soon, but right now he was content here. He lay in the sand, staring up at the night sky like a glittering blanket above him, and just for the moment felt at peace.

“You did such lovely work for me.”

Crowley shot up into a sitting position, heedlessly flinging sand in his haste. The being next to him defied description. She was at once old and young, male and female and all else between. She was long and lean and stout and plump and tall and short and soft and hard and sharp and full and everything. She did not change nor was She confusing to behold, but within Her She contained multitudes, all the possibilities that ever were and ever would be. If pressed Crowley might say she looked like Eve, but it would be no less accurate to say she looked like Adam, either of them, or the little girl who lived down the lane or older brother or her parents or her grandmother. Even the painting of Her in the Sistine Chapel was an equally accurate reference. She was the Alpha and the Omega, She was everyone and everything and everywhere and everywhen, but She was also here now, sitting on the sand next to Crowley.

“Mother,” he breathed, voice full of surprise and a thousand other fraught emotions.

“Anthony J Crowley.” She spoke the name he had chosen for himself, and in saying the words She pronounced it Good.

He had so many things he wanted to say to Her. Accusations to hurl, long speeches he’d carefully crafted for years, and questions. So many questions. And in that moment they all left him. His voice emerged from someplace broken within him, scraped and raw. “I love you. I love you, Mother. I still love you so much, and I can’t…” His whole body trembled with need, but he didn’t dare reach out. He thrust his hands in the ground and clenched uselessly at the sand as the teardrops fell.

“Peace.” She reached forward and gently cupped his face in her hands. “My dear child. I have loved you since I first breathed life into the firmament of the universe and spoke your name, and I will continue to love you past the end of eternity.”

Crowley clutched her wrists with desperate fervor. “Then why did you cast me out?”

She smiled sadly. “I did not cast you out.”

Crowley’s laugh was bitter and brittle. “That’s not how I remember it.”

“_And Peter answered Him and said, ‘Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.’ So He said, ‘Come.’ And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?_’” She finished her recitation and her tone softened. “I no more cast you from Heaven than Jesus cast Peter in the water. ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’”

“Because you made me this way,” Crowley cried, the words wrenched from his chest. “You could have… you could have…”

“I could not,” She said. “You are my beloved child; I could not have lessened you by making you anything other than what you are.”

“Why?” It was every question Crowley had ever wanted to ask Her, distilled down to a single word.

“You always had so many questions for me. So many that I could not answer and so many answers you could not understand.” She looked deep into his eyes, reading each and every one of the questions he’d ever asked, every moment that he’d turned his thoughts to Her and wondered. She smiled. “Why now, though. That I can answer.

“When you lost your faith you cut yourself off from me. If I had come to you, you would not have seen me. If I had answered your prayers, you would not have heard me. Though I am always with you, you could not feel me. But now you look at your life content and wonder if this wonderful world was my real plan all along.” She placed a hand on his chest. “You opened your heart to me just a crack, and I came.”

Crowley collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, resting his head on Her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mother. Please…” His voice cracked as he asked for the one thing he was forbidden to have. “Please forgive me.”

She placed a hand in his hair. “Sweet child. There is nothing to forgive. I will always love you, and if you are ever ready to come home - truly to the core of you ready - then there shall always be a place at my table for you.”

Crowley sobbed and clutched Her, and She hummed soothingly back. “It’s been a long, hard day for you, child.” Her concept of a day had always been a little off-kilter with the human concept of it, and the day She was referring to this time encompassed his entire 6000 years on Earth. “Come, rest with me awhile.”

Crowley resisted at first, terrified of going to sleep and waking to find this had all been a dream. But She gently guided his head down to her lap and passed a soothing hand over his forehead. “Sleep. I will be here when you awake.”

* * *

By the time the Aziraphale looked up from his book, the first hints of dawn were already peeking in through the windows. It was unlike Crowley to stay out stargazing all night, not by himself. Aziraphale knew things were probably fine; there was no need for him to fret. But then, there was no need for him to force himself to stay here and not fret, when he could just as easily join Crowley on the beach and not fret with him. So Aziraphale made his way through the winding garden and to the cliff face, looking down at the beach below.

There was never a question in Aziraphale’s mind as to who the figure on the beach was, not for even an instant. He jumped off the side of the cliff, his wings automatically snapping out to break his fall. He ran across the sand, his feet clumsy in his haste, until he finally collapsed to his knees just behind Her. “Mother!” he cried, millennia of longing bursting free of him.

She turned around with a gentle finger placed on her lips. Her eyes glanced downward and Aziraphale followed them to Crowley, sleeping peacefully with his head pillowed in Her lap. His breath caught at the heart-wrenching sight, only to whoosh out of him again when he looked up and saw Her arms opened to him.

He flung himself to her, only just remembering to be careful of Crowley. He could always feel Her Holiness within him, but now it surrounded him, engulfing him in light and warmth and Divine love. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeated over and over, his voice lilting musically.

She held him close and whispered in his ear, “And I love you, Aziraphale.”

He might have stayed there for another 6000 years, but it was only a few minutes later he was sitting back on his heels and tucking his wings away. “I tried to call you once, just before everything happened. Nearly happened,” he said his voice shaky and uncertain. “You didn’t answer.”

“I did not forsake you, my child,” She said. “I could not answer because Adam had to make the choice for himself. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Lord.” He had guessed as much for himself afterward, but…

She smiled at him. “Good. And I am so proud of you, of both of you, for protecting his right to make that decision.”

The tears flowed down his face thick and fast, and he pressed his hands to his mouth. She was _proud_ of him. “Thank you,” he said through sniffling, hitching breaths. “Thank you. I… I know I’m not a very good angel-“

Her fingers brushed his lips, silencing him. “You are an exemplary angel. You hold my love close to your heart and you share it with all my Creation. What more could I ask of you?”

Aziraphale’s eyes strayed to Crowley. The weight of millennia of secrecy and worry and hiding and forbidden longing which hung over him even now, here together in their little cottage on the sea, came crashing down all at once. “I love him, Mother. He is a demon, and I love him wholly and selfishly and with all that I am. He is dearer to me than anything else in Creation, and I would forsake it all for his sake.”

She brushed the tears from his face and regarded him fondly. “Do you remember when we last spoke?”

It seemed all his sins were coming to bear. “I’m sorry, I lied to you, Mother. I didn’t lose the flaming sword; I gave it away,” he said desperately. “I gave it to the humans to protect themselves with.”

Her laugh rung out, the most beautiful sound Aziraphale had ever heard. “I knew the fate of the sword before I ever gave it to you.”

“Then why…?”

“What did you do then after I had left you?”

“I went up on the wall to watch Adam and Eve. Then Crowley – Crawly at the time – came up and began talking to me. We discussed his temptation and the Great Plan, and then he asked me…” about the sword. And Aziraphale had been feeling so guilty, not just about giving it away, but for lying to God about it, that he had told this strange affable demon the truth. Crowley had told Aziraphale later that had been the moment, the turning point. While it had taken thousands of years for it to come to fruition, that had been the point where it had all begun.

She regarded his amazement with soft amusement of Her own. “I am the Lord God. I see all, and all is as it should be,” She declared. “Though perhaps for shoulds now is when you should be getting your demon home.”

She ran a hand through Crowley’s hair and gently shook his shoulder. Crowley’s eyes slowly blinked open, and the wonder and love in them as he looked up at Her nearly overwhelmed Aziraphale. “Rise, my child. Your angel has come to collect you.”

Crowley looked at Aziraphale and sat bolt upright. His eyes were wide with alarm was they darted between Her and Aziraphale.

Aziraphale shuffled over to him. “It’s alright, love.” He took Crowley’s face his hands and kissed him for God and all the world to see. “Everything’s alright.”

She rose, and gestured for the two of them to do the same. She took one of their hands in each of her own and brought all four together in front of her. “Demon Anthony J Crowley, Principality Aziraphale, your God commands you. Go forth into the world together. Love it as I have loved it, and cherish each other as I have cherished you.” She dropped their now clasped hands and reached up to press a kiss on Crowley’s forehead. “Go with my blessing.” Then Aziraphale’s. “And go with Grace.” She took a step backwards and regarded them both for one last long moment. “Thus sayeth the Lord.” Then She vanished.

“She’s gone,” Crowley whispered, sad and lost.

Aziraphale squeezed his hand. “No. She’s still here with us. Can’t you feel Her?”

The waves crashed against the shore. The colors of the dawn spread out across the horizon, and beyond them, unseen but never gone, the stars glittered. A wind blew through the garden, bringing the scent of apple blossoms down to the beach. The breeze tugged playfully at Aziraphale’s clothes and ruffled through Crowley’s hair. One last solitary tear formed in the pit of Crowley’s eye. “Yes,” he said smiling. “I think I can.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are loved. Or come hang with me on [tumblr.](https://nicnacsnonsense.tumblr.com/)


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